


Traces

by dontmindme_imafangirl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 16:49:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16021988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontmindme_imafangirl/pseuds/dontmindme_imafangirl
Summary: Sentence prompt: "Just look at me, please" + Stucky





	Traces

*****

He knew it’d be a challenge.

How would it not?

To realize who it was that made his heart clench like a vice, a name on his lips that he felt he was born to seek out, baby blues haunting him through the night.

How could he ever face his best friend again when he realized he’s in love with him?

 

It wasn’t sudden. But then again, it wasn’t gradual, not really.

 

Bucky fell for Steve every day since the day he met him, a scrawny kid clutching a pen and paper to his chest, huddled in the corner of a playground.

How could he not fall in love with the small frame that’d stand up for those that were hurt, who’d fight any injustice with his weak fists and his shit-eating grin?

Even when he lost Steve, when he lost himself, when he returned changed, scarred, molten swirls on his body reminding him what he’s done. Even then he loved him.

Through his haze he’d remember flashes of blue, soft smiles shared under moonlight, a memory pure, the crimson surrounding him refusing to taint the brightness of that smile.

 

_’Steve’_ his mind begged him to remember, _his name is Steve, your Steve-_

But then the shock would come, white jostling spurts that ran through each tendon of his body, shaking the words out of his head.

And now they’re here.

 

In Steve’s ragged little apartment in Brooklyn, modest despite the reputation surrounding him, his fighting suit hanging in the back of a dusty closet.

He’s here, he’s sitting across of Steve on the couch, the tune of an old sit-com fading in and out of his ears, Steve’s lips humming along to the words. There’s a pencil in his hands, a sketchbook on his lap, and he steals soft glances towards Bucky, hiding a smile like a toddler sneaking candy out of a jar, sweet pretense of inconspicuousness in the gleam of his eye.

The words are stuck in Bucky’s throat at the sight, at the soft lashes posing shadows on Steve’s cheeks, at the curve if his lips, the slant of his nose, the litany of freckles molting his face into a starry sky.

 

“I love you” he thinks, and his voice betrays him, letting out the phrase he’d held onto for so long, too long, until love pummeled from his chest and out his throat, stilling the movement of Steve’s hands on the paper.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

What was there to say?

It’s not as if there’d be any way that Steve would love him too. Not in the way Bucky did, not in the ‘I want to kiss your lips until they’re swollen and hide into the crook of your neck because it’s the only place that feels like home’.

He knew that Steve loved him. He loved him in the way he never gave up on him, in the way he took him in once he was found again, alone, scared, a shadow of his former self.

Steve loved him in the way he’d rush to his side in the middle of the night, when waters riddles with corpses haunted his sleep, when the only thing binding his soul to that moment, holding it in place before it shatters, was the feel of Steve’s palm on his sweaty forehead, the whispered reassurances in his ear.

“I’m a monster” Bucky would say, and Steve shook his head, _’no, no, you’re a survivor’_ he’d say, and for a brief moment, Bucky would believe him, would let himself melt into a warm embrace, away from the bloodshed, from the scars on his chest, the cold feel of metal tracing his shoulder down.

 

Steve loved him.

Even when Bucky deserved nothing but scorn, Steve loved him, as a friend, as family, but not as this. Not in the way Bucky did.

He didn’t know what to do, his gaze fixed on a loose piece of lint on the couch, hands clenched over his lap.

He heard Steve’s breath, hitching, and exhaling, ever so slowly.

 

“Buck…” he started, voice soft, too soft and it hurt, it hurt because Bucky knew what’d come next, the rejection, the disgust, the 'you don’t deserve to be loved’ Steve should’ve told him so long ago, from the very first moment he saw him again on that fucking bridge.

 

“Bucky, look at me.”

 

Steve’s hand hovered over his clenched fists, as if afraid to touch him, as if he’d break.

Maybe he would.

 

“Just look at me. Please.”

 

He hesitated, let his eyes flutter shut before picking his head back up to look to Steve, to the pair of eyes that never left the back of his mind, not even through the shocks, the torture, the blood.

 

“I love you too.”

 

Bucky couldn’t help but huff a laugh, soft and sad, evident in the furrow of his brow.

 

“I know Steve.”

 

He tried to get up, let himself drown into his bed until he melted into it and turned to dust, but a hand gripped at his wrist, tugging him back down.

“No Buck. I love you. I-” Steve started, stumbling over his words. His eyes skidded between Bucky and the sketchbook, still sitting on his lap.

Steve sighed, running a hand through his hair.

He gripped the sketchbook, shoving it onto Bucky’s chest.

 

“Steve what-”

“Just open it”, Steve prompted.

So Bucky did.

The first page was…of him.

Or of who he used to be.

Cheeks chubby with baby fat, a front tooth missing in his wide grin, eyes squinted.

“I drew that from memory”, Steve shrugged, “it’s not as accurate but it’s what I remember you like.”

He flipped the page, and another ghost greeted him.

It was Bucky again, older, his jaw sharp, lips pursed, his hands hidden into his military coat’s pockets. He looks rough, yet his eyes still gleam, in a way he doesn’t remember, not anymore.

 

Was he ever this person?

Page after page, his past self greeted him with soft smiles, crinkled eyes and ruffled hair.

“I drew you a lot, after you-after you were gone. And before that, I’d draw you sometimes when you weren’t paying attention.”

The freckles on Steve’s face were hidden by a sodden blush, his body tense besides Bucky.

“Why did you never show me these?” Bucky asked, tracing a finger on the paper.

Steve shrugged.

“I was scared you’ll find it weird.”

Bucky shook his head.

Never. He’d never find it weird, not when he could see the love each line was drawn with, how much emotion hid through each expression, in each page.

“Keep going. There’s more”, Steve urged, and Bucky complied, shaky hands flipping page after page.

The Bucky in the last few pages was one he recognised.

It was the current him, the one with crow’s feet by his eyes, with raised scars on every inch of his skin, one metallic arm peeking through shirts and tank tops.

It was the current Bucky.

But it wasn’t the hollow person he thought it’d be.

It was Bucky, his head lowered, a small smile toying on his lips.

Bucky, his eyes shut, lips slightly parted, looking so much younger in sleep than he ever looked when his eyes blinked open.

Bucky, but with that same damn gleam his eyes held in the past, only softer, more solemn.

It was the Bucky that loved Steve.

And it was the Bucky Steve saw in him.

 

“I love you.”

 

He felt his breath shudder at the words, Steve’s lips tracing it onto the juncture between neck and shoulder, lashes tickling his skin.

Steve raised his head, inches away from Bucky’s face.

“I love you. I don’t think there has ever been a time when I didn’t love you.”

Steve laughed, the warmth of it lacing over onto Bucky’s lips.

“Hell, I probably loved you before I even met you” he said, “I loved you when you were gone, and I loved you when you returned, changed or not.”

“I love you”, Bucky whispers, and his words are hitched into his throat, lips covering his, hands intertwining themselves around his neck.

I love you, Steve whispers, and this time, Bucky lets himself believe it.

*******

**Author's Note:**

> :-) my buddy Jen asked me to write this and not make it angsty and i. did? i think  
> anyway yeah here's some short soft stucky for the soul lol
> 
> hmu on tumblr: mothgane.tumblr.com (i'm currently accepting prompts~)


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